Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1887-03-13
Even Hamlet had his merry

comic SIDE. Even hamlet Dau MS merry
gravedigser.
Colonel Carstone recovered, to all APP
pearances, and went about as usual. Shir-
ley's own little private grief had lost its
sharpness in the dread shadow of that
other sorrow which had passed so awfully
near them.
The girls mind ran once more OF her
poem. Her father sympathized with her
hopes and ambitions entirely. He was her
counselor and confidant in all things. All
things? Perhaps there was just one little
corner of her heart that she kept yelled
from him. Perhaps, too, this adored IA
Their knew more even about that little cor
ner than Shirley thought for.
There was something peculiarly beauti-
full and touching in this love between father
and daughter. They were much alike.
They were of strong, intense nature, both,
so that far more than the common tie be-
tween parent and child bound them to-
gether, to begin. sBut there was also super
added to this common tie an intellectual
good comradeship lacking between most
fathers and daughters They were very
near TO each other and very much to each
other.
81 mean to study and practice writing
for two years, papa" said Shirley. When
| am Is | shall begin my poem. 1t is to
be all about women. ! wont have a man
in it, except only Just enough TO hang the
plot OH. I'm tired of reading about men
and fighting. Women have been sighted
in history and poetry since the world be-
gan. Moderate honors are suitable to
women says Tiberius. II shall he 80 no
more. 1t shall he 80 no more. | will not
have it SO. The hero of my poem shal be
woman
SO the girl read aud pondered, and
dreamed the days away. The poem took
| shape. Her heroine should be Il kingly
woman, such rs the world never saw before.
but should see many q time hereafter, IN
the coming ages. She should be q woman,
strong and shining, head and shoulders
above all the rest, Tide AgImemnon, king
of men. Hawthorne alone, of all the wrl-
ters Shirley read, had felt the thrill OF her
heroine's coming presence. Hester, In the
Scarlet Letter, . heard her advancing foot
steps:
At some brighter period, when the world
should be ripe for it, in Heavens own time,
a new truth will be revealed, IN order To
establish the whole relation between man
and woman on a sure ground of mutual
happiness. = = The angel and apos-
tie of the coming revelation must be a
woman indeed, but lofty, pure and beautl'
ful, and wise, moreover, not Though dusky
! grief, hut the ethereal medium of JOY.
As Shirley read and thought she was
led on to look deeper into the currents OF
human existence. 1t came to her that her
imagination would create a beautiful lite
that should he an eternal benediction To
w%Omankind. Women, the world over,
would read the poem, and this heroine of
hers should be an inspiration TO them. The
~toilers, the troubled, the heart broken, the
weak among women should gather strength
and hope from her pages. Her poem-hers
-Smrley's-shOuld sing a strain of lofty
music that would ring around the world.
And then?
Youth is strong and fiery and elastic.
Her thoughts suddenly dived down into
the yelled corner of her heart. And they
"A a SONG hat 10 her ear Was rs sweet as
that which should echo round the world.
They sang this: ,
Perhaps the master will hear it too, and
come back,
I-, ne ...NTuNTFEn